Sunday Surprises

Unpleasant conversations

//Above is a visual influence of Sunday's outfit at the end of the chapter :)//

Sunday was going to throw up... again.

As she hid in the closet down the hall from her hospital room she found herself fleeing from through her mother's legs on hands and knees moments after she arrived, she curled around the mop bucket full of her own vomit every time she saw another speckle of blood, mentally ordering a fruit basket for whoever's janitor closet she was taking refuge in.

She could hear people walking outside the door, the heeled boots and scuffed smart shoes of Emily and Rossi rushing out to see if she was okay in the bathroom further down.

It wasn't that she actively chose this cupboard to vomit inside instead of the bathroom where she knew her mother could find her... of course not.

And it wasn't like she was trying to avoid her mother per say, she just hadn't had time to prepare for her visit this time.

The last time she saw her, Sunday had to spend two day preparing herself and her old house for the scrutiny her mother claimed was out of love.

Oh Annika, you really must join that gym around the corner sweetheart, I can see your lunch.

Stop putting your hair up, you'll look like the boy I wish I gave birth to instead.

You're making him fish for dinner? Hm... no, I just didn't realise I raised a slut.

Her visits were a lot, lovely of course, but a lot.

The weekends seemed to stretch for months when her mother was there, different to when her father visited the one time which seemed to last minutes in comparison.

Sunday knew everything she did, said or wore would be monitored, listed later at a brunch or two, laughed over at a hairdressers, the worst written in her mother's weekly email newsletter 'updating' her life.

Yep. Her mother was retired, or more so living off her ex husband's alimony and half of Sunday's old teaching pay checks in her high-rise penthouse in upstate New York- the place she demanded to live after the divorce instead of moving back to Hong Kong with her family.

Since she no longer worked, not that she ever had a desire to, she had more free time than most people knew what to do with, but not Vivian Li- Mai Paisley, no she always could fill up time- usually by talking, specifically about herself.

Hence the weekly emailed newsletter that Sunday felt an incredible amount of guilt for blocking- remembering to read the hundreds she had missed before each visit with her mother to catch up, lighting another hit of anxiety in her chest as she hid in the closet without any preparation for the woman down the hall from it.

Everything swirled around her as the missing blood from her arm and knowledge of her mother being here caught up to her, Sunday finding her head resting on a mop for only a moment- that was until she was awoken by a ringing in her ears and a pain in her chest half an hour later after dozing off.

She needed help, she knew that- but how could she get it when the one person she could never look like this in front of was meters away from the door that suddenly opened with a gasp of her own breath to look up at the figure she couldn't quite make out with the contrasting light.

"G-god?" She tried to blink through the harsh lighting change as the figure tilted its head, seeming to come to a decision it was chewing on, standing back slightly to call out down the hallway.

"N-no wait, please don't-" Sunday tried to call out to the figure who surprised her as she recognised the voice, more shocked at what he said.

"No, she's not in here Morgan- I'll check the lower floors" Hotch called out to his team who were half looking for Sunday and half getting an ear full from her mother who sat patiently in the hospital room.